Abstract

Some aspects of the history of social science research in Ireland, such as the work of Arensberg and Kimball, have been repeatedly revisited and reappraised. Others have been largely ignored and neglected. This paper revisits one such victim of neglect: a research project on the morale of Dublin busmen carried out by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the early 1960s within the twin contexts of turbulent industrial relations and fledgling Irish social science research capacity building. This working paper does not focus principally on the theoretical framework, fieldwork methods or empirical findings of the Tavistock study as published in 1967. Instead it examines the abortion of the project as originally conceived at what should have been its half-way stage together with the party political rows and media spinning that took place over its dead body.